After convincing myself that Photoshop Elements was a "need" :) (not really)-- I found it $20 cheaper than I expected at Costco and it came with 100 free prints which I will use. Then.....I found some leftover money on a Costco gift card. So I am now the proud and confused owner of Photoshop Elements! My last post was evidence of my ownership. I was so excited to try those circle swirls on my orange flower picture from Napa but all I had time to do was slap it up there without explanation. Thankfully, there are a ton of tutorials on Youtube and on photoshop.com that will help me learn to navigate the program.
But wait! There's more!!! My husband ordered some things for me for my birthday that I had put in our Amazon shopping cart/wish list. Today I got a remote control for the camera, the Nikon D5000 field guide, and a UV filter for my lens. The remote will be helpful in portraits when it is helpful to engage with subjects without a camera attached to your face and also in slow shutter speed situations where even depressing the shutter release button with the camera on a tripod causes camera shake. The UV filter is basically helpful to protect the lens. The book- is going to be a great help in understanding my camera well and helping me to get really, really comfortable with my equipment so that I can then focus on photographic technique.
Wait some more. Because there is STILL more!!! Miracle of all miracles, my dad texts me on Saturday asking me what I want for my birthday. He says, "Don't say 'Nothing'." Ha!! I said, "Well, you caught me at the right time because I REALLY want a bunch of camera stuff!!" He asks me to pick him up so that we can go shopping at the Camera Center downtown. I was so excited. Wouldn't you know, we get downtown for this very rare occasion-- and it is closed for XFEST- a huge outdoor concert. I was so bummed! Well, anyway, to make a long story shortish-- my dad gave me the money to get a new lens. I have wanted this lens for a couple of years. It will allow me to drop down to an Fstop of 1.8. I think I can only go to F3.8 or 4 on my current lens. This means that I can get those great portraits that have sharp focus of the face and nice blur of the background. It is also a great lens (due to its speed) for indoor events and low light situations-- think birthday party, candles lit on the cake, nice focused picture without the flash popping on and washing everything out! I am so excited to play with my new lens and all this stuff. I have a huge heap of new stuff to learn. Additionally, it is THE nicest gift my dad has ever given me and it is special to get a gift from him that I really couldn't have justified buying myself but that I think is going to open up a lot of possibilities for me.
One last funny thing- I was reminded that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder! I was showing my dad some of the pictures I have taken. He thought the pictures of Kate were, "cute." He was uninterested in the grapes. I showed him the shot of the almonds opening and he said," Well, I've seen that 100 times before!" And then I showed him one of my all time favorites-- the chain. He said, "Dawn! Of all the things you could take a picture of, why in the world would you take a picture of an old chain?!" Hahahaha!! I got the biggest laugh out of that and it has given me pause in my thoughts about all this photography stuff. This stuff really ISN'T as striking to everyone as it is to me! It doesn't change how I feel about it, but it is funny to me to imagine that some people might have viewed these pictures with similar thoughts to my dad's. Like, ' It's just corn! Or, yup, that's a flower!' :)
Monday, August 6, 2012
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Friday, August 3, 2012
Awesomeness, Architecture, and RAIN!
Amazing! Awesome! Perfect! A Gold Standard! All these adjectives- yet words are not always able to measure up to my assessment of things. Even so, I must redundantly use them because it's the best I can do. So, on that thought-- here's a few things I am mulling around that fit some of those descriptors!
I am having a mental/emotional battle in classifying Photoshop Elements between the WANT vs NEED category. It seems that I am severely limited at this point in even the most basic editing ability. It is good to compose a photo correctly the first time, but sometimes you just can't! I was distracted in some of my portrait shots and the end result needed to be cropped. It took me almost an hour to fight through the sample programs to find a way to crop it and resize correctly to email. Surely, it was mostly my fault- operator error. But!! The want of Photoshop Elements began to cross over to NEED :) when I saw this cool technique of making circular, swirled images. It takes a nice photo and turns it into art. For me, the artistically-challenged, this is amazing! It comes from "Rick Sammon's Digital Photography Secrets".
Check it out http://www.worldisround.com/articles/300657/index.html
I want to make these!! My teacher's assistant for the photography class crops these to 4x4 first and then prints to make cards. Then, she puts them in a clear CD sleeve for an envelope! So cool and such a great gift!
I am still plugging away at my assignments for class. Some are so multi-faceted. Close-up, Still Life, Architecture, Moon Photography-- are all part of one lesson! The course barely touches on each but gives links for more info. I have been reading and practicing the close-up stuff. I don't really care about Moon Photography at this point. Still Life seems really fun, but it seems pointless to work too much on it without proper lighting. A studio light would be helpful because it doesn't cast unusual color. I have just begun some digging in with Architecture Photography. This seems challenging in some respects. So far, I have learned that it is very easy to create converging lines when photographing tall buildings. The temptation is to point the camera up from your vantage point to get the top of the building. However, that causes the lines to converge. The trick is to keep the camera parallel to the face of the building. Professional Architectural Photographers have special equipment to compensate for these tendencies. They use wide angle lenses and a view camera. A view camera (as best as I can understand it) takes in more area to view and allows the photographer to shift the view plane up in order to avoid tilting and resulting converging lines.
For those who aren't professional architecture photographers and who don't have special equipment, I learned a few tips. Use the lowest ISO setting (for greatest reduction of "noise"), use a small aperture for the greatest depth of field (allowing for all of the picture to have a sharp focus), use a tripod (obviously, the small aperture will need a slower shutter speed to allow enough light in), and use of a telephoto lens can compress the image in a helpful way. Additionally, more evidence for the NEED category :)-- you can correct perspective errors in Photoshop or a specific app -plug in like Image Align PRO(which is geared toward architectural photographers.) If the corrections are made before resizing the image, there shouldn't be too much loss of detail. Finally, in Photoshop there is a Trim Tool, and some teaching in the tutorial section about this issue that shows how to check the perspective box in the Options Bar. Use of a step ladder or a higher floor from another building can solve the problem, too.
This might be boring to you viewers, but I am using this blog as a learning log of sorts so I have to write this stuff in detail!:) A few last thoughts on the architectural photography-- one famous such photographer said to try to compose the photograph to display what the building hopes to be (or something like that!) Another point is that there is a lot of variation on the advise of architectural photographers. Some prefer the straight on view, others like shots of a point of intersection to show depth of a building, others prefer very close up shots to give a sense of design and detail.
A final topic that I cannot wait to explore is RAIN!! Perhaps August in California is making this subject even more enticing- but somehow, I don't think so. I love the smell of rain, the sound of rain, the feel of rain. How wonderful will it be to capture rain and its effects on my camera? My photography class instructor mentioned rain a while back. She said the play of light and color during and directly after rain is incredible! She once led a class regularly on some photo expedition outings. One day it was raining and the class was shocked that she didn't cancel the outing. They quickly learned why.
The visual elements of rain/after rain photos are an exciting prospect to me, but also the emotional elements. I'm not sure how yet, but I want to capture in my camera the way rain makes me feel. And really, not just how it makes me feel- but others, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3stFDtVQ_M&feature=player_detailpage
I am having a mental/emotional battle in classifying Photoshop Elements between the WANT vs NEED category. It seems that I am severely limited at this point in even the most basic editing ability. It is good to compose a photo correctly the first time, but sometimes you just can't! I was distracted in some of my portrait shots and the end result needed to be cropped. It took me almost an hour to fight through the sample programs to find a way to crop it and resize correctly to email. Surely, it was mostly my fault- operator error. But!! The want of Photoshop Elements began to cross over to NEED :) when I saw this cool technique of making circular, swirled images. It takes a nice photo and turns it into art. For me, the artistically-challenged, this is amazing! It comes from "Rick Sammon's Digital Photography Secrets".
Check it out http://www.worldisround.com/articles/300657/index.html
I want to make these!! My teacher's assistant for the photography class crops these to 4x4 first and then prints to make cards. Then, she puts them in a clear CD sleeve for an envelope! So cool and such a great gift!
I am still plugging away at my assignments for class. Some are so multi-faceted. Close-up, Still Life, Architecture, Moon Photography-- are all part of one lesson! The course barely touches on each but gives links for more info. I have been reading and practicing the close-up stuff. I don't really care about Moon Photography at this point. Still Life seems really fun, but it seems pointless to work too much on it without proper lighting. A studio light would be helpful because it doesn't cast unusual color. I have just begun some digging in with Architecture Photography. This seems challenging in some respects. So far, I have learned that it is very easy to create converging lines when photographing tall buildings. The temptation is to point the camera up from your vantage point to get the top of the building. However, that causes the lines to converge. The trick is to keep the camera parallel to the face of the building. Professional Architectural Photographers have special equipment to compensate for these tendencies. They use wide angle lenses and a view camera. A view camera (as best as I can understand it) takes in more area to view and allows the photographer to shift the view plane up in order to avoid tilting and resulting converging lines.
For those who aren't professional architecture photographers and who don't have special equipment, I learned a few tips. Use the lowest ISO setting (for greatest reduction of "noise"), use a small aperture for the greatest depth of field (allowing for all of the picture to have a sharp focus), use a tripod (obviously, the small aperture will need a slower shutter speed to allow enough light in), and use of a telephoto lens can compress the image in a helpful way. Additionally, more evidence for the NEED category :)-- you can correct perspective errors in Photoshop or a specific app -plug in like Image Align PRO(which is geared toward architectural photographers.) If the corrections are made before resizing the image, there shouldn't be too much loss of detail. Finally, in Photoshop there is a Trim Tool, and some teaching in the tutorial section about this issue that shows how to check the perspective box in the Options Bar. Use of a step ladder or a higher floor from another building can solve the problem, too.
This might be boring to you viewers, but I am using this blog as a learning log of sorts so I have to write this stuff in detail!:) A few last thoughts on the architectural photography-- one famous such photographer said to try to compose the photograph to display what the building hopes to be (or something like that!) Another point is that there is a lot of variation on the advise of architectural photographers. Some prefer the straight on view, others like shots of a point of intersection to show depth of a building, others prefer very close up shots to give a sense of design and detail.
A final topic that I cannot wait to explore is RAIN!! Perhaps August in California is making this subject even more enticing- but somehow, I don't think so. I love the smell of rain, the sound of rain, the feel of rain. How wonderful will it be to capture rain and its effects on my camera? My photography class instructor mentioned rain a while back. She said the play of light and color during and directly after rain is incredible! She once led a class regularly on some photo expedition outings. One day it was raining and the class was shocked that she didn't cancel the outing. They quickly learned why.
The visual elements of rain/after rain photos are an exciting prospect to me, but also the emotional elements. I'm not sure how yet, but I want to capture in my camera the way rain makes me feel. And really, not just how it makes me feel- but others, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3stFDtVQ_M&feature=player_detailpage
Monday, July 30, 2012
Goodies from Napa
This weekend I was blessed by a beautiful trip to Napa Valley with my husband and some wonderful friends. There was certainly beauty everywhere and I easily could have spent the entire trip composing photos and loving every minute of it. Perhaps I spent too much time with my camera as it was. Someday..... someday it would be fun to go back to that area just for photography fun. I am thankful for what I have learned in my class, yet continually feel the frustration of not knowing how to capture what I see with my eyes. I wish I could just know if it is composition and settings or a special lens or attachment.
My photography class is over. I still need to finish the final and work on the assignments that I haven't completed. It is difficult to describe how much I enjoy all of it. I love it. I am afraid, though, that I will get out of balance about it. I am finally pursuing something that I like and enjoying the chance to learn something-- yet, in the scheme of things, it just isn't that important, right? It is just photography. I find myself often reminding myself to hold onto it loosely- this pursuit doesn't need to define me, or be understood by everyone around me. It can't cause me to feel frustrated when I don't get the time I would like to delve into it. I can't irresponsibly place it in a higher financial priority. And, expression of how it moves me can't be my highest aim. There's a lot to think about with that. Anyway, here's a few shots of things I enjoyed this weekend.
My photography class is over. I still need to finish the final and work on the assignments that I haven't completed. It is difficult to describe how much I enjoy all of it. I love it. I am afraid, though, that I will get out of balance about it. I am finally pursuing something that I like and enjoying the chance to learn something-- yet, in the scheme of things, it just isn't that important, right? It is just photography. I find myself often reminding myself to hold onto it loosely- this pursuit doesn't need to define me, or be understood by everyone around me. It can't cause me to feel frustrated when I don't get the time I would like to delve into it. I can't irresponsibly place it in a higher financial priority. And, expression of how it moves me can't be my highest aim. There's a lot to think about with that. Anyway, here's a few shots of things I enjoyed this weekend.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Crops
For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. Hebrews 6:7
In previous posts I have talked about certain things "catching my eye." It happens all the time. Yet, with this topic, I think I can also say, it catches my heart, too. There is something about crops/harvest that amazes me and stirs up my heart with worship for God. It is fascinating to me, how food develops from little seeds and how it grows with time and nurturing. I love the whole process and each stage seems to be beautiful on its own (except maybe for the seed part.) :) After living away for almost 8 years and then returning to the Central Valley- It seemed that I had new eyes with which to appreciate the process of food production around here. Every late summer, early fall brings a sense of anticipation in me as the fruit stands are overflowing with variety and I consider the different nut harvests. I have been able to "help" some friends from time to time with their harvest. I didn't actually do much! Mostly, I just wanted my boys and I to get to share in that hard work, get dirty, and see more of the complete process of how food gets on our table and around the world. When I think about it, I can't really reason why I would be excited about standing/sitting in an orchard watching the truckloads of nuts load and leave, or why I would get such pleasure out of making sure the nuts got picked up and put on the elevator without debris, etc. I can't explain it! But, I do like it!
Here are some pictures I was able to capture yesterday. I don't think I used a whole lot of technique-- Maybe just a little with composition guidelines. My goal was more to just capture what I thought was beautiful and/or fascinating while practicing Macro or Close-Up Photography.
I know, that's a LOT of grapes! :) But, they are soooo pretty!!
I love this one--if I had done things a little differently. I wish I had made the focal point toward the top left instead of center, and I wish I had a lens that let me get a little closer while maintaining focus.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Assignments
As I mentioned before, I am a little behind in my photography class assignments. Actually, I think I would like to do more on just about every lesson, but, there are some that I haven't even touched yet. I just finished some work on the Portrait Lesson- but I didn't take as many shots as I should have and I didn't vary lighting or the poses. In the next assignment I am supposed to look at some of the suggested websites and in magazines/newspapers to find poses of people, families, groups, and pets. If there is a pose idea that I like, I am supposed to print it/tear it out and put it in a separate binder to keep as a reference. That's a pretty neat and practical idea.
The lesson after Portraits and Group Portraits is on Travel Photography. For our assignment we are supposed to travel to a place we don't usually go for at least 1/2 of a day and complete several specific tasks in our picture taking. I am toying with the idea of driving up to Knight's Ferry by myself one day and trying to get some nice shots of the covered bridge. However, she wants us to take a photo that shows the "culture." I'm not sure how to do that at Knight's Ferry! :) Another barrier to this assignment is time. I have looked at the calendar and the next 2 weeks seem pretty full, not to mention the difficulty in finding childcare for my jaunt.
After Travel, we learned about PhotoJournalism. Wow, this chapter was so exciting and intimidating, too! One cool thought that was addressed is that many local papers accept freelance work and pay per picture. If you happen to catch the action on your camera before the paper is there, you really might have something to bargain with. Additionally, there are magazines and other events covered by the paper that accept freelance work or photos from the community. It would take courage-- but it would be fun to try submitting something sometime. For this assignment we are to photograph a current event of some sort- a parade, a breaking news story, a community event, etc. We are encouraged to complete a number of tasks from a checklist in our assignment, but overall, to tell the story with pictures rather than words. A teaching point in this lesson was to be "out, move in, move out." In other words, take some photos from a wide, distant perspective. Then, find some detailed shots that continue to tell the story and then quickly move the perspective out again and take more photos. With at least 36 photos we are supposed to be answering, "Who, What, When, Where, Why."
The last assignment that has been released to the class so far is on Close-Up Work. I picked up a couple of library books on this subject last week but haven't read through it yet. I have learned that there are special lenses for Macro Photography and/or some adaptive equipment to use with a regular lens. No wonder I couldn't capture an image the way I saw them in books and magazines! For the assignment there are several categories from which to choose. Macro work, Still Life-like a postcard, a historic painting, picture from a book, Architecture-finding at least a 2 story building to photography with some shots of detail and some to give a sense of the structure, or finally, Moon Photography. At this point, I am not sure which one has more appeal!
The lesson after Portraits and Group Portraits is on Travel Photography. For our assignment we are supposed to travel to a place we don't usually go for at least 1/2 of a day and complete several specific tasks in our picture taking. I am toying with the idea of driving up to Knight's Ferry by myself one day and trying to get some nice shots of the covered bridge. However, she wants us to take a photo that shows the "culture." I'm not sure how to do that at Knight's Ferry! :) Another barrier to this assignment is time. I have looked at the calendar and the next 2 weeks seem pretty full, not to mention the difficulty in finding childcare for my jaunt.
After Travel, we learned about PhotoJournalism. Wow, this chapter was so exciting and intimidating, too! One cool thought that was addressed is that many local papers accept freelance work and pay per picture. If you happen to catch the action on your camera before the paper is there, you really might have something to bargain with. Additionally, there are magazines and other events covered by the paper that accept freelance work or photos from the community. It would take courage-- but it would be fun to try submitting something sometime. For this assignment we are to photograph a current event of some sort- a parade, a breaking news story, a community event, etc. We are encouraged to complete a number of tasks from a checklist in our assignment, but overall, to tell the story with pictures rather than words. A teaching point in this lesson was to be "out, move in, move out." In other words, take some photos from a wide, distant perspective. Then, find some detailed shots that continue to tell the story and then quickly move the perspective out again and take more photos. With at least 36 photos we are supposed to be answering, "Who, What, When, Where, Why."
The last assignment that has been released to the class so far is on Close-Up Work. I picked up a couple of library books on this subject last week but haven't read through it yet. I have learned that there are special lenses for Macro Photography and/or some adaptive equipment to use with a regular lens. No wonder I couldn't capture an image the way I saw them in books and magazines! For the assignment there are several categories from which to choose. Macro work, Still Life-like a postcard, a historic painting, picture from a book, Architecture-finding at least a 2 story building to photography with some shots of detail and some to give a sense of the structure, or finally, Moon Photography. At this point, I am not sure which one has more appeal!
Monday, July 23, 2012
Golden Path
I tried again to capture that golden light highlighting the path, and retried the lighting on each lap of my walk. It really is amazing how the tone of the light can change so drastically in a 30 minute time frame! In the top photo I used the spot meter. I metered light just to the right of this shot, on some shady bushes that had a little bit of light on them-- then, turned the camera back to the scene and took the picture. This allowed the shutter to be on a slightly slower speed to let in more light. Before I used the spot meter, the picture was very dark because of the direct sunlight beaming into the camera. That would have been great for a silhouette!
Taken July 22, 2012
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